


of apples round and red

by salt_rose



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, SPOILERS ABOUND, beware all ye who enter: angst follows u, it's sad, tw for suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salt_rose/pseuds/salt_rose
Summary: It tastes of honey and love, of a too-fleeting first kiss, ofI love you, andyou must harden your heart to a cutting edge. He wonders how she has created something that tastes of home and melancholy andreliefin just a single bite.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	of apples round and red

**Author's Note:**

> hover over the elvhen for translations - for mobile, translations are at the end.
> 
> & many thanks to [larithia](https://inquisitor-veowyn.tumblr.com) for being an amazing beta  
> to [meg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeleneLux/pseuds/SeleneLux) for keeping me company & beta'ing  
> to [kita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arista_Holmes/pseuds/Arista_Holmes) for doing this challenge with me & making noire cry
> 
> and to [noire](https://noire-pandora.tumblr.com%22) for challenging kita & me to make her cry in a one shot with apples
> 
> try not to die of grief, I'd miss you

What is it that holds you tight?

Is it the brush of a lover’s kiss?  
Is it the smell of a home-cooked meal?  
Or is it freedom, shimmering sharp and jagged within your heart?

***

Love comes in ways Solas cannot fathom. It begins with apple blossom lips brushing along his cheeks, the palm of his hand, the curled ridge of his ear. It soaks into the rosettes of apple tarts, coats his tongue like honey. 

(light filters in from above, setting   
dust motes alight,  
and his hands tangle in her silver hair.)

  
One eye opens, a soft sigh drips from her lips, as she leans into his touch. Pride becomes patience becomes love as his vhenan stirs in the half-light.

  
(Ar lath, ma vhenan.)

  
It continues to grow with heated looks across campfires, shadows waltzing across her face. When she leaps into battle, his soul leaps with her as she wield her spirit blade; she is an angel among devils, a dancer among statues.

  
When she falls, his soul falls with her. _Redredred_ blood seeps from her stomach, coats her teeth, slick against her amour and healing hands. 

  
(it is not enough)  
(it must be be enough)  
(ma lath, stay with me)  
(ma lath, _please_ )

  
What is one more miracle when she has performed hundreds? Benedictions to whoever might listen spill from his lip in a torrent of anguish, love, pleading. She is enough, so he must be enough.

Eyelids flutter shut as mana sputters out.

It is _enough_.

They sleep, dark and without dreams for three days. When he wakes, she is beside him, their hands entwined. Dying sunlight paints her in gold and fire and she has never been more beautiful.

Their love climbs to a crescendo one night among the graves of fallen knights. She is lying on the back of a stature of him, ignorant though she may be. 

  
Hope, a curious little ember.

Could-?

  
No.

  
But if- ?

  
You are a fool, Dread Wolf.

_Hello,_ _ma lath_ , 

Chords shift into minor keys and dissonant harmonies.

_Halam’shivanas._  
You have a duty, Dread Wolf.  
You must atone, _harellan._  
You do not deserve to be happy and she -

  
she deserves the _world_.

  
They have always been foils: creation and light stream behind her while he is drenched in death heaped upon death, his hands bloodstained and cruel.

_Ar lasa mala revas_.   
You are free.

Solas? Solas please!

He fades into the even half-light and only when she leaves does he allow himself to break.

A day passes, and Skyhold beckons. On his desk sits a trio of apple tarts, sans note. ( _They taste like ash._ ) Later, he notes the smudges of flour and icing on her outwears and his heart shatters that much more.

***

Years pass and he sees her, glittering glimmering green with his power. Oh, what destruction his pride has fashioned. His heart, his vibrant heart, brought to her knees because of him.

_Let me follow_ , she pleads.

But he cannot - he will not bring her pain, death, and destruction more than he already has. He will be her undoing, just as surely as she is his. He knows then, that if she were to follow, he’d throw it all to the wind, just so he could hear her voice a second more.

_Var lath vir suledin!_   
_I wish it could,_ ; _vhenan._

  
***

The second to last time they meet, it is in the middle of a battlefield. She smiles, and it is a dagger to his chest.

ma vhenan.  
_You are losing, ma lath._  
_You will be overwhelmed soon,_  
_and the Veil will stay._

  
_I have always been overwhelmed by you, vhenan._  
_You have always been my pillar and_  
_My downfall._  
_I would not have it any other way._

Her fingers ghost over his cheekbones, and settle into the crook of his neck. A tear falls, diaphanous and mercurial. It is in this embrace they stay, till her forces break his and dash his atonement into shards of dreams.

_I am sorry, ma lath._

_I know, vhenan. You have_  
_lifted the weight of one_  
_thousand suns off of_  
_my chest._

The light of one hundred fires burns against his eyelids as he lets them take him.

***

The last time they meet, his lips taste of magebane and a single square of moonlight sits to his left. They have warded this jail against magic, against his rage. Footsteps, slow and steady, approach his cell. 

She carries a tray with her, though it trembles as she joins him in captivity. A steadying breath, hands brush hair escaped hair back into place, and she sits next to him.

_They will accept nothing less than-_

her voice cracks

_-than your death._

  
_I expected as much._  
_It is the least I deserve._

_I cannot -_ I will not  
_accept a world in_ _which you are dead._

She motions to the tray; on it sits two apple tarts, and two cups of a virulent red liquid.

_I will not let you go_  
_where I cannot follow._  
_Not this time,_  
_ ma lath. _

  
_I could never ask-_

_You_ aren’t _. Either we go now,_  
_Hand in hand,_  
_Or we go alone._

He studies her for the length of a heart break. A sigh of a defeated man fills the room as he picks up the rosette.

_ Ar lath, ma vhenan. _

_ Ar lath, ma vhenan. _

It tastes of honey and love, of a too-fleeting first kiss, of _I love you_ , and _you must harden your heart to a cutting edge_. He wonders how she has created something that tastes of home and melancholy and _relief_ in just a single bite. 

The liquid is bitter and it _burns_ \- it is fire, contained.

One final apple blossom kiss, then -

**Author's Note:**

> ar lath, ma vhenan - I love you, you are my heart's home  
> ma lath - my love  
> halam'shivanas - sweet sacrifice of duty  
> harellan - trickster/liar/deceiver  
> ar lasa mala revas - you are free  
> var lath vir suledin - our love will endure this path  
> vhenan - the home of my heart / you carry my heart in you


End file.
